First Impression on KDE 4.8.0

I have just finished upgrading my desktop to use KDE 4.8.0, which was just released by KDE team few hours ago while i was sleeping. Thanks to Eric Hameleers, i could get the early release of KDE packages and downloaded this packages as i slept last night. When i woke up this morning, all i have to do is to make sure everything is already up to date by running the rsync script once again.

Next on, performed the command written on the README and performed the upgrade. Don't forget to have a complete look on the README as there has been a renamed packages. After i rebooted my machine, KDE started to be loaded and there was a new splash screen called Air and Ariya Splash Screen which is very minimalistic, but it does look more professionals.

If you have been using KDE 4.7, you won't get too much drastic changes, as it's based on previous releases. According to the announcement, there are a lot of areas which has been improved on this release:
I do feel that KDE 4.8.0 is faster than previous release, probably due to updated Qt which is now bumped to 4.8.0 to sync with KDE release version. You can also have better performance when you enabled desktop effects as there has been a lot of improvements on this area as well.

I used Kate a lot and on this release, Kate also got several new features and one of the new feature i like a lot is the new Line Modification Indicators. It really helps for developers to work in collaboration.

Another nice improvement from KDE is the Power Management System Settings which has been redesigned for simplification. It really helps for users carrying portable devices, such as laptop or netbooks.

KSecretService is taking it's debut on this release to provide new framework for sharing saved passwords and other credentials between a wider range of applications.

So far, i have no problems with this release, but even if there is a problem, it will soon be sorted out in the next monthly release which should be out in February and months following.

For now, i'll enjoy Slackware and KDE 4.8.0